Bains' Criminal Intent
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: Zach Nichols studies the criminal psyches of the drug dealing Bains brothers and the sociopathy of corrupt Officer Pat Morales, deducing what made them the crooks they were. Basic character study.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Law & Order: Criminal Intent_ or _Police Quest_; I'm just playing with some of their characters in a short story.

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Detective Zach Nichols of the Major Case Squad was used to solving cases involving murders, and his talent lay in getting into the psyche of the criminals. Nevertheless, he had read about this very fascinating case about a family of criminals called the Bains family, who were responsible for nothing less than drug trafficking, illegal gambling, and numerous murders.

A Californian reporter named Ben Bulwer wrote in a national headline about how a police officer named Sonny Bonds, two of his partners, Detectives Laura Watts and Keith Robinson, and some other cops had brought the town of Lytton's tragic history with these criminals to an end. The family consisted of Jessie Hiram Bains, a violent, dangerous drug runner and sharp gambler who also committed his share of assaults with a deadly weapon, his brother, Michael Bains, an insane former Marine who led a drug-cult called "Sons of Darkness," and Pat Morales, their half-sister, and a corrupt cop with a reputation for insubordination and hatred for authority figures, and a connection to the drug-cult.

Nichols almost wished he had been on a case like this himself, even though it happened over two thousand miles away, on the other side of the country. It looked like Bonds and his cop buddies had quite a time on their hands. In the paper, Bulwer explained that Jessie Bains was a psychopath who tried to take over Lytton, CA, with his drug running business and illegal gambling, along with several criminal employees involved in drug pushing, card playing, and hitting independent drug dealers. Bonds had once commented that it was his opinion that Bains was no ordinary human being, but some kind of monster. After being incarcerated, a year later, Jessie escaped and went on a revenge spree, killing two of his former employees who testified against him in court and attempting to kill Bonds and his girlfriend. His brother, Michael, had a violent nervous breakdown after Jessie died, and was dishonorably discharged from the Marines. Then he started his drug dealing cult and attracted followers to his banner, including one Steve Rocklin. As for Pat Morales, she had a tragic upbringing where she lost her mother before she was born, and her father was negligent and abusive to the point where she loathed him, and felt like celebrating when he accidentally died. Then, later, Jessie took over and provided for Morales, who didn't care if Bains was using criminal actions to get his hands on her food and clothing.

This sounded like a case that Nichols would have found fascinating to work on. Like most cops, he knew about corruption in nearly every police force. It sounded like this Morales was one unhappy, frustrated woman who just couldn't handle the everyday crap a police officer had to go through, like the verbal abuse ungrateful and suspicious citizens heaped upon cops like him and his partner, or the reprimands of her superior officers, either. He attributed it to her relationship with her terrible father, who, as the paper also said, had been a drunk. Anyone who found it difficult to love her own parents and was saved by a psychopathic criminal would never find it easy to suffer the rebukes of superiors or the abuse of the citizenry that didn't care for the police. Nichols imagined that if Morales had come asking to Moira Boyle, and Moira had called Morales a filthy cop to her face, Morales would have gone berserk and maybe even hit Moira. It amazed him how he knew all this so intuitively, but then, he was trained to understand and decipher the minds of crooks.

Jessie Bains sounded like quite a character himself. The word from Bulwer and other sources throughout America (including Chicago, where Bains used to have his operations before moving to Lytton) was that Bains was a wicked character, but very smooth, too. He enjoyed taking risks, meaning he was unusually brave for a crook, but he was also very professional with a gun, and shot his former men, one Woody Roberts and one Don Colby, in the back of the head from a distance of eight inches. Evidently, he was greedy, and his love for gambling and large sums of money brought him lots of it. And his drug running showed that he would even sink low enough to hurt the people of his city in slow and subtle ways, with nose candy. And he didn't take getting arrested, or betrayed, easily, as evidenced by his attempted revenge spree on the people who put him in jail. It was surely a good look into what this killer's character was.

As for Michael Bains, he had the same vile weakness as his brother, but he had a case of psychotic outbursts to go with it. He was unable to handle the loss of his brother, and he got violent and assaulted some of his fellow Marines for no reason, leading to his discharge. He followed in his brother's footsteps and became a powerful drug lord in his own right. Several other drug dealers and killers joined his cult, including his ever-loyal half-sister, Pat Morales, who was also ready to avenge Jessie, and together with Steve Rocklin, they almost murdered Officer Bonds' wife, Marie Bonds. Fortunately, Sonny tracked down the killers, and they all died in a fair fight, except Michael, who resided in an institution now. Morales was dead, too, shot by an Internal Affairs officer.

Nichols took a sip of his cup of coffee. It was amazing what the scum of the earth could and would do in the name of either greed, or a miserable youth. It made him proud of these officers and detectives that stopped the long, tragic history of America with the Bains family. But no matter how many people they told that they had the right to remain silent, there would always be more criminals and more crime to investigate and defeat.

_"Oh, well, if a day ever comes when we can live in a world without crime, I guess there'll be no more need for the Major Case Squad or other cops like us. And I hope such a day never comes, at least not in my lifetime, because this is what I love doing. I'll be out of a job, for God's sakes!"_


End file.
